


As We Are Two

by sultrybutdamaged



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: As in they are technically not there, F/F, Lovers to Friends to Soulmates, M/M, Minor Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko, Pining, Shared Dreams
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-09
Updated: 2020-12-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:54:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27982638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sultrybutdamaged/pseuds/sultrybutdamaged
Summary: As he and Yusuf travel away from Jerusalem, and war, and everything either of them have ever known, Nicolo wonders how he is supposed to find meaning when everything he thought once made sense has been torn away, all of it replaced by this man who sings to his soul but who remains a stranger.  Perhaps his dreams of two strange warrior women who love each other all-consumingly have something to teach.Yusuf would just like Nicolo to tell him something, anything.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 6
Kudos: 33
Collections: Mistletoe Exchange 2020





	As We Are Two

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kingstoken](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kingstoken/gifts).



> This is my fill for the Mistletoe Exchange, as well as my first fic in this fandom. This project was a lot of fun and I'm definitely looking forward to writing more for these characters.
> 
> Beta by [thoughtsappear](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thoughtsappear/pseuds/thoughtsappear)

_They were coming closer._

_They rode under a burning sun, somewhere full of sand and dry air, low scrubby trees that offered no protection from the glare and heat, surrounded on the road by pilgrims and merchants and soldiers who offered no protection either. But they had headscarves woven around their faces, and sturdy, plodding, tolerant mounts who weren’t going anywhere fast but would get them where they needed to be. And they were together, so that was enough._

_Sometime after the sun had begun to dip towards the earth, day’s heat fading rapidly to night’s cold, the smaller, darker figure on the leading mount slowed, and turned back. The other had fallen behind, distracted by the colors and smells of the busy road, by thoughts of a weapon that needed cleaning and waterskins that needed to be refilled, distracted by dreams. The dark-haired figure waited with uncharacteristic patience, used to this sort of thing._

_The other finally noticed, and paused. Pale hands on the reigns, reddened by the sun, rough from years, decades, perhaps more, of fighting. A voice that cracked from the dry air, until the rider cleared her throat, and tried again._

_“We are coming closer to them,” she said. “But they are still moving.”_

_The smaller, black-haired woman shrugged. “Then we keep moving too. Until we find them. The poet and the priest.” A smile curved the line of her mouth. “It is not as though they can get away.”_

_“No.” The other woman also sounded amused. She nudged her mount forward, coming alongside her companion. “And I don’t think they’re in a hurry to meet us.”_

_The dark-haired one laughed, a low sound with a hint of danger. “They are afraid of us,” she said. It did not sound completely like a question, but not unlike one either. She sounded amused by the possibility._

_The other shrugged. “Or they just aren’t in a hurry to meet others like them, at least not like I was when I first dreamed of you. They are… hmm, there are two of them. Have been from the beginning.”_

_“Two.” The black-haired woman stretched out her hand, reaching across the distance between the two mounts to brush her companion’s arm. A light touch, but one full of meaning. “As we are two.”_

_“As we are.”_

Nicolo woke up. The transition from the brilliant sun of wherever the two women had been riding - south, perhaps further than Damascus, some land Nicolo had only seen on a map but Yusuf would know - to skies heavy with rain off the sea, was startling. He blinked slowly, staring up through the rough tent they’d constructed, wondering for a moment where his horse had gone, his scarf, his… axe?

But no. He did not have an axe, and he had been on foot for weeks now. He certainly had the calluses on his feet to prove that, for all that blisters seemed to heal as swiftly as any other injury he took.

_You also are not a woman named Andromache_ , he reminded himself. _Traveling with a black-haired companion named Quynh, whom you love._

He turned his head, and found his own companion crouched a few feet away, coming to the end of his prayers.

“I think I have had enough sleep,” Yusuf said, glancing over from where he dug through his meagre belongings, flashing Nicolo looks as he folded and repacked and adjusted the things he’d refused to give up when they abandoned the majority of their belongs and fled the battlefield - the slaughterhouse - outside Jerusalem. His light, chattering tone didn’t match the serious expression in those eyes. Yusuf, Nicolo had learned, found the quiet uncomfortable, which was unfortunate for him, given the company he was now keeping. “And it is going to rain. I know we said we would avoid stopping in too many places, but we will reach Tripoli in a few days. We are far from my family, from your… from your army. We will have the protection of crowds. I don’t see why we shouldn’t stop for a night.” 

There was a slight questioning tone to his voice, one that had begun to creep in as they moved further and further from his city. Nicolo, who had barely traveled more than a few miles from home before he’d set out on his fool’s quest, could understand that. In the beginning, he’d been more than happy to let Yusuf, who knew the roads and the language, the currency and the food, take the lead, but now they were in territory neither of them had ever done much but travel through and he was feeling out of his depth. He wondered if the strange women in his dreams would know this area. They had the feeling of being very old, of having seen and done everything possible under the sun. 

He didn’t share his doubts, not because he thought Yusuf wouldn't listen, but because his doubts would not help them now. And they barely had enough language in common to communicate at all. So he only nodded.

“Yes, far from anyone who will recognize us,” Yusuf picked up, reassured. “So there cannot be any danger in stopping for a night.”

That is what Yusuf’s voice said. His face - mobile and expressive, showing every thought and feeling he had even beneath the heavy beard - and his dark eyes said something else. 

He’d had the dreams again too.

It was not that Yusuf did not want to talk about the dreams. That was Nicolo’s affliction, which Yusuf tried to respect. He supposed it wouldn’t hurt to alleviate it a little.

“The women believe they are coming closer,” he said. “But they are somewhere in a desert, a dry place, with crowded roads.” He shivered in the faint chill. It was generally warm south of the sea, but not after a night sleeping outside on the ground. “Nothing like this place.”

He jumped when his own cape landed on his head. “Cover yourself before you freeze,” Yusuf said, and despite the words there was nothing gruff or exasperated in his voice. There hadn’t been for a long time, because it seemed that while Yusuf was a man who could hold great anger, he was also capable of setting it aside, and minor foibles didn’t irritate him. It was one of thousands of bewildering things about Yusuf. If Nicolo had had access to paper, he would have made a list. “They will find us or they will not. We will continue on either way.”

“Of course,” Nicolo said, and stood, drawing the cape around him. Yusuf’s eyes, dark, steady, still the eyes of a stranger while also being the eyes of the only man in the world who understood, the man who Nicolo - Yusuf’s eyes caught him and Nicolo did his best to look reassuring. “Of course they will.”

_Please_ , he thought, in the direction of the strange warrior women. _Please find us. I cannot - I need to understand._

He gathered his things in silence. When they had their packs on their backs, swords secured at their sides, Yusuf turned to him and raised his eyebrows. “So?”

“We will find a town and stop,” Nicolo agreed, reluctantly, and then caught his breath as Yusuf smiled, bright and joyful, a look that sent a stab through Nicolo’s chest. 

_Please_ , he thought again, as they stepped out onto the road, thinking of the woman and her companion, the easy way it was between them. _I need to understand._

***

After the third time he’d killed Nicolo, Yusuf had begun to wonder about him.

Before the first death, he was just the enemy, the invader, one of the devils who wanted to destroy Yusuf’s home, and Yusuf had killed him like he had a dozen others that morning. He’d blurred with all the others, Yusuf taking no note of anything specific about his armor or his weapons or what little showed of his face. He’d made a swipe at the other man’s throat, saw the blood spray and noted that it didn’t sicken him as much as it would have only a few days earlier, that perhaps he was becoming innurred to the terrible waste of all this life - and then there had been a sharp stab of pain in his belly and he’d looked down to find a strange sword had struck him from below. _I didn’t expect that_ , he’d thought, distantly, confused that his own impending death, though infuriating, didn’t feel like the shock it should have been. His father, his sisters, his bride-to-be and his beloved friend, flickered through his mind, but the thoughts didn’t hold. 

As his knees collapsed, he’d looked up, and found the man who’d killed him, the man he’d killed, also falling, his eyes wide with far more surprise than Yusuf felt. There had been a minute sense of satisfaction in that, beneath the grief at his own life coming to an end. The man’s eyes were green, he’d noticed as his vision dimmed. Beautiful. What a waste.

The second time - after the disorientation of waking up distinctly not dead, with the wound in his stomach gone - he’d convinced himself that it wasn’t the same man. That Yusuf had been saved, by some devil or magic or Allah himself, was improbable enough; why would any power, higher or lower, have saved a brute like this? Even when the man looked at him again as they died side-by-side, with those same lovely, unreadable eyes already glazing over, Yusuf had still thought _surely not the same man._

By the third time it had become impossible to question, and the man’s continued survival had filled him with rage, that he would destroy all Yusuf loved and not stop no matter what Yusuf did to him, a single man embodying an entire army. Yusuf had killed him with great satisfaction that time, and died with a smile on his lips.

It was only when it became clear that Yusuf was not going to die no matter what the other man did to him, nor the foreigner despite every means of dealing out death that Yusuf could devise, that he began to think perhaps it mattered who this man was, that something bonded them together beyond this endless, senseless grappling in the mud and muck and blood, that Yusuf and the stranger might have things to say to each other if they could find their way past this meaningless battle. It hadn’t been enough to make him lower his sword - whatever strange fate had gripped them both, Yusuf could not put aside his fury so easily - and it wasn’t until a dozen kills later, when he jerked to life and stumbled to his feet and realized that the two of them stood completely surrounded by the corpses of men, theirs and his, who’d fallen unnoticed while he and this one man remained locked together in death, that the absurdity of it all had overwhelmed him and he’d met the man’s eyes and lowered his sword. The man had looked at him, wary and incredulous, but when Yusuf made no gesture to resume their fight, he’d held out his hand in a gesture of … friendship, or perhaps just surrender. 

And so they’d stopped killing each other, and Yusuf had formally met Nicolo di Genova. Who, it turned out, had no answers to his questions.

They didn’t speak much that first night, both exhausted from fighting and dying again and again, numb with confusion and the first inkling that their lives were not going to be the same. After they stumbled from the battlefield, Nicolo had removed his helm - revealing a face as beautiful as the eyes set in it - but baring his face had made him no more easy to understand. He’d spoken tersely, his Arabic terrible, his own tongue so heavily accented that Yusuf could barely follow even the phrases he recognized. No, Nicolo did not know what had happened to them; no, this had never happened to him before. When Yusuf asked what he _thought_ , Nicolo had fumbled for the cross at his neck and said “God.”

It was as much of an answer as they were going to get right then.

What followed had been weeks of stumbling attempts to travel away from Jerusalem. It wasn’t kinship that bound Yusuf to the stranger so much as the awareness that he, like Yusuf, had died repeatedly in front of dozens of men who knew his face and sword and armor, that one death could be explained but so many must have been seen. Perhaps his brothers and friends, who had known him all his life, might have been willing to consider Yusuf’s survival a blessing; they would not extend that courtesy to the Christian, and while Yusuf felt no affection for the man, the thought of losing the only person who understood what had happened to him was a profoundly lonely one. So they’d left both their peoples and traveled, aimlessly in the beginning, then slowly setting a path, choosing a location - the road to Damascus, until they’d changed to reroute towards Tripoli - thinking only of not being recognized. They hadn’t spoken beyond what they needed to get food or decide on a direction. They heard rumors as they went, stories of a knight and a defender of the city who’d battled each other to death again and again. The first time they’d heard it, Nicolo had smirked a little, head tilted as he met Yusuf’s eyes. It was the first time Yusuf had seen him smile.

There was an understanding between them that talking would come later, once they were safe, once they were away from war, if such a future even existed. At least, Yusuf understood that; when he’d said as much to Nicolo, the only time he’d tried to speak of the future beyond the next day, the next town, Nicolo had listened with his customary solemn expression and nodded. Yusuf took that as an agreement, since he didn’t have much choice.

It was almost a month after they’d stopped killing each other, on a night when it rained and they were sleeping by the side of the road, shivering in sodden clothes, that Yusuf had moved closer to the other man. Nicolo had started when Yusuf pressed against his back, a soldier’s reflexes waking. “For heat,” Yusuf had murmured, because it was fucking cold and even sleeping huddled against a man who’d recently killed him seemed preferable to finding out if his new immortality also applied to surviving the elements. He’d thought Nicolo might protest, but instead the other man had made a gesture, a sort of shrug that Yusuf felt against his body more than saw, and relaxed into sleep with surprising ease. And so from that point on, they shared blankets, and fell asleep touching as much as they needed to be comfortable and no more, and when they woke sometimes with legs intertwined and Nicolo’s hair in Yusuf’s mouth, more comfortable than they should have been so close to an enemy, they didn’t speak of it.

Another month, and Yusuf had woken before dawn to Nicolo pressing against him, hips curved into the front of Yusuf’s body. Yusuf was hard, and he’d thought about moving away before the other man woke. It wasn’t the first time they’d found themselves in this position, and neither of them ever mentioned it. Yusuf had spent enough nights alongside his friends, and with one exception, all of them had understood that this happened and you didn’t shame the other man by bringing it up.

But Nicolo, who never spoke about anything, not what he thought was happening to them or why, not what it meant to him to be in a strange land where he no longer trusted his fellows and was dependent on a stranger, an enemy he’d believed so deserved death that he’d sailed across the sea to deliver it, not about who he’d been before they met or why he’d wanted to destroy a land that wasn’t his - Nicolo decided this, Yusuf’s morning stiffness, was the subject that must be addressed.

“I could help with that,” he said in clumsy, halting Arabic - better than it had been a few weeks ago, but not by much. Yusuf distracted himself by thinking about Nicolo’s terrible accent so he wouldn’t assume that Nicolo meant - surely not - 

As if understanding that his meaning might not be clear and determined to alleviate any confusion, Nicolo had reached behind him and slid his hand between Yusuf’s legs. “Help,” he repeated, not a request but an offer.

“Yes, alright,” Yusuf had said after a moment, because what else was he going to say?

And so that had become a part of this strange, quiet arrangement of theirs, and over the next days and weeks, Yusuf had come to know Nicolo’s body as he’d only ever known one other. But Nicolo himself remained a stranger.

***

_The small woman - Quynh - stroked her companion’s side, warm from the fire’s heat. “Do they dream of us, do you think?” she asked._

_“Your priest and poet?” the other, Andromache, asked dryly._

_Quynh shrugged, resting her chin on Andromache’s shoulder. They were both bare-skinned, wrapped only in rough blankets, in some small, crude indoor place. Perhaps a hut for travelers, or one meant for animals that they’d stolen for their night’s rest. They were still in the desert, and it was cold when the sun set. “I have to call them something,” she said. “The one with the beard and the one with the nose seems insufficient. They both have beards now. And his nose isn’t that big.”_

_Andromache laughed, body trembling with it beneath the other woman. The way they lay, she was like a rug for Quynh to stretch out upon. “I think this is a lot of talking about other people when we could be amusing ourselves in a different way.” She shifted, turning and lifting the smaller woman’s hips; Quynh followed along, until she was straddling her, bending down so long black hair fell like a veil over both of them._

_Quynh’s lips brushed the other woman’s ear. “Do you think they dream about us like this?” she asked, her meaning now slightly different. “Like we dream about them?”_

“Are you really a priest?” Yusuf asked. It had been a warm night, no need to huddle together for their comfort, and so they’d slept several feet apart, but Nicolo had still woken with the other man’s hand on his hip, as though Yusuf had reached out in his sleep to be sure he was still there. He didn’t know what to think about that, and he had an odd fear of insulting Yusuf by rejecting the gesture, so he hadn’t moved to dislodge it. The touch was comforting, different from the way they touched each other when they were looking for release. 

“I am,” he said, then paused. “Or, I was.” To say he was still a priest was worse than to say he was still the son of his father and mother. How could such rules apply to what they had become? He wondered if Yusuf still thought of himself as part of a family, as a son of Jerusalem. 

Yusuf still prayed, but so did Nicolo. He wondered if their reasons were the same.

“Ah, yes, of course.” The sound of Yusuf shifting around brought Nicolo’s attention back to him. The other man pushed himself up so he could rest his chin in the palm of his free hand. He made no move to shift the one still touching Nicolo away. “Dying must relieve you from your vows,” he said.

Nicolo was only briefly startled by the idea, because he quickly realized that Yusuf was making a joke. Yusuf did this more often than he’d noticed in the beginning; the other man, he suspected, would be witty if they’d known enough of each other’s tongues for wit to be easily conveyed, and he had a sly sense of humor. Nicolo sometimes tried to return the humor and Yusuf always made a face that reminded Nicolo of all the times his brothers had told him he wasn’t funny.

“No,” he said, fighting a smile. “I don’t believe it works that way. But then I suppose there isn’t a precedent for us.”

“I suppose not.” Nicolo waited, wondering if Yusuf would now take their conversation in a serious direction. He knew the other man was eager to talk about their circumstances beyond practical matters, but Nicolo always shied away from that talk. What was he going to say? That he’d prayed that God give him purpose in a life that seemed without one, that he’d continued to pray even as he marched into a charnel house, even as he killed men he no longer believed should be his enemies because he didn’t want to admit to having been so wrong, and that in return for his prayers he had been given… what? A life that did not end, and a companion from among the people he’d been taught to hate, one who had begun to stir him in ways that were unlikely to be part of some divine plan? Oh, and dreams of strange warrior women who he desperately hoped would give him answers and who he feared even more would tell him it was all meaningless, women who made love to each other as he and Yusuf - 

He turned onto his side, catching Yusuf’s hand when it would have slipped from his hip. “You dreamt about them.” He must have. Certainly Nicolo had not mentioned the priesthood, and yet Yusuf knew. “The women?”

Any disappointment about the change of topic didn’t show in Yusuf’s expression. “I did,” he said, a smile tugging at his lips. He freed his hand from Nicolo’s grasp and brought it up to touch his face. Nicolo let his eyes flutter closed. He wasn’t used to touching like this - none of the men he’d loved, if it could be called that, had ever wanted this kind of affection, and Nicolo hadn’t felt the lack of it. But Yusuf’s touch was as appealing as everything else about him, as his laugh and the way his eyes wrinkled when Nicolo amused him and the flurry of curses when Nicolo lost half their money to a merchant who cheated him. “We see them together,” Yusuf said, “just like they wondered. Does that mean they see us?” His fingers took on more pressure, thumb pushing at Nicolo’s lips to part them. “Do you think we shock them?”

“They don’t seem easily shocked.”

Yusuf laughed. He had a beautiful laugh, full of notes, like music. “And you? I didn’t think priests did such things, but you do not seem inexperienced.”

“Well,” Nicolo said, flickering his tongue over Yusuf’s thumb and watching the emotions that played across his face just because of that simple gesture. He’d never met someone who had as many expressions as Yusuf, and showed them so lightly. “I often prayed to be forgiven for my sins.” He could feel the snicker building in his voice; this was why he’d always been bad at joking, because he could never make it to the end of the joke without laughing. “And every week I had more and more sins to confess.”

Yusuf snorted. “You don’t seem very remorseful.”

Nicolo shrugged and let himself fall back, tugging at the other man’s clothes until Yusuf settled against him. “I suppose I should be, but as my sins are counted, this one always seemed much less than the others.” He saw the curiosity in Yusuf’s eyes and fended it off. “What about you? Are you telling me that among your people you are considered natural?”

Yusuf snorted. “No,” he said, but he didn’t seem upset about it. “My father would have been horrified if he knew I loved men. My mother would have cried. My sister did know, however. She married a man we both loved.”

“Oh.” Nicolo wasn’t sure he’d ever actually loved anyone, not like Yusuf seemed to be implying. It didn’t surprise him that Yusuf had, however; even in a short time, with a language discrepancy and a war between them, he’d been able to tell that Yusuf was a man of passion. “And were you supposed to marry as well?”

“I was.” 

Nicolo wanted to ask if there had been a particular woman, if Yusuf had loved her, if Yusuf loved women in general. Had he wanted children? What career had he had, what kind of family did he come from, were they rich or poor? Did he love music or books or dancing? Did he miss anyone back in Jerusalem?

Sometimes the fact that they spent all their time together and yet were strangers, that he did not know this man and yet already the thought of being parted from him felt like an unbearable loss, overwhelmed him. And then he thought of the two women from the dreams, how they fought and laughed and made love like they were nearly one person, so in sync with each other that they could complete the others’ thoughts, and he wondered if someday - 

Yusuf ran a hand along Nicolo’s throat, making his breath come faster. As a distraction went, it was effective, though Nicolo doubted Yusuf meant it that way. Probably this was more teasing. “Did you always want to be a priest?”

_Yes_ , Nicolo thought, _and a warrior for God._ But he couldn’t imagine Yusuf would want to hear about that under the circumstances. Guilt settled heavily in his stomach.

“I certainly didn’t want to be a husband,” he said lightly.

Yusuf snorted. “Such a shame for the women of Genova,” he said. “But their loss is my gain.”

It sounded like a joke. It probably was one. But Nicolo’s breath still came faster as Yusuf began to work his clothing free. “My gain as well,” he murmured.

***

Eventually Yusuf had realized that words were not the way he would learn anything about Nicolo. 

It was a strange realization, because Yusuf had always been a man of words. “You spoke poetry before you could walk,” his mother had said, many times, an obvious exaggeration, but a fitting one. Yusuf could not remember a time when words had not come easily to him. He _had_ spoken, as clearly as a miniature adult, from a young age; he could remember his father standing him up to recite the poetry he’d memorized for guests when he was only four or five years old. He’d read young too, because learning to read had come quickly, and books had always fascinated him. Stories, songs, works of scholarship, but especially poetry. He’d written his first poem, for his mother, at seven. He’d written poems for his friends, for his sister, for his first love. He’d always spoken his affection for others openly and poetry had been another way to do it.

He tried to imagine what Nicolo would say if he wrote a poem for him, if he confessed to an affection that had blossomed unlooked for and maybe unwanted but no less real, and laughed to himself.

Nicolo was a quiet man, reserved. Not fearful, Yusuf didn’t think, not shy. Thoughtful, and not just because he was translating his words in his head before he spoke them out loud. He was not clumsy with words, but he seemed to prefer to use few of them, and only when necessary. As time went on, he sometimes attempted more conversation, but it was usually stilted and awkward. He did not show many emotions on his face, whether anger or sadness or joy, and it took weeks for Yusuf to begin picking up the signs in other ways, like how Nicolo looked away when he found something Yusuf said amusing, like he didn’t want his reaction to be noted, or how he moved with sharper, less graceful steps when he was irritated or angry. His eyes gave away more than the rest of his expression did, feelings that were hidden away on the surface showing plainly there, which meant Yusuf had to watch them closely, hardly a terrible sacrifice.

In the beginning, Yusuf assumed Nicolo stayed with him out of the same combination of survival instinct and the fear of being left alone in this strange new life that kept Yusuf tied to the other man. Certainly there had been no affection, on either side. He had to assume the other man hated him, or at least who he was, because nothing about coming across the sea to fight for his God made sense if that was not the case, but if so, Nicolo hid it well; though he could become easily annoyed by a whole host of things, from the weather to their dwindling supply of money, he never seemed angry with Yusuf, or with the people of the land he’d come to conquer. He showed nothing but curiosity when Yusuf prayed, and if he had his own rituals, he kept them to himself. Yusuf had slept with his sword in hand in the early weeks, because he was not an idiot; Nicolo had lain down that first night, eyes on Yusuf’s weapon, and then slowly set his own aside, close enough to reach if they were attacked but with enough distance that he wouldn’t have been able to reach it before Yusuf could strike. Yusuf only thought about that a little before he fell asleep.

He couldn’t say he’d forgiven Nicolo for being what he was, if that was even a relevant concept after the incomprehensible turn their lives had taken; only that he’d set aside his anger and grief, to be thought about at a different time, when there weren’t so many other things that didn’t make sense. And in the space that was left had come room to consider the other man and try to make sense of him.

He was kind, in his way. Not in words, necessarily, but in deeds; though their funds were extremely limited, they never seemed to pass a village where Nicolo did not find a beggar to give to. Of course, this was also because he had no concept of money at all. Yusuf had taken over haggling for all their meagre purchases because Nicolo alway got cheated. He suspected the other man had come from wealth, and not the kind Yusuf had, hard-earned through his and his father’s work. Nicolo acted like he’d never thought about the cost of anything. He was just as clearly inexperienced in hard travel; though he didn’t complain, Yusuf had seen him wince at the pain in his feet (and why could they not have been spared that, along with the natural consequences of sword wounds?), and he took much longer than Yusuf did to fall asleep on the hard ground those first nights. He might have been a soldier, but Yusuf doubted he was an experienced one. 

But he killed easily. That had been startling, even after the time they’d spent on the battlefield together. After weeks of travel, after seeing Nicolo give away absurd amounts of money and make terrible attempts at jokes, they had been caught, foolishly, by bandits one night just after they’d turned away from the road to Damascus. The men had been thin, half-starved, and Yusuf had not wanted to hurt them - he was so terribly tired of killing, after Jerusalem - so for once he’d imitated Nicolo and given away what they had. That had been enough to satisfy two of them, who’d run off, but the third had stayed to taunt them, sure they had more. Yusuf had tried to talk to him placatingly, all too aware that he’d left his weapon out of reach, foolishly, and that the man had a knife - and then, just as he’d lunged, Nicolo had moved like a shadow, grabbing the man’s arm and twisting his knife from his hand to drive it into the bandit’s throat. It had taken only seconds. When he was done, a look like remorse had crossed his face and he’d knelf to close the man’s eyes and murmur something that sounded like a prayer.

Later, over the fire, Yusuf said “I’m surprised I didn’t die more often at your hands.”

Nicolo had looked confused, face creased in lines of puzzlement in the dark. “You are a skilled fighter,” he said. “I would not want to face many like you, even now.”

Yusuf shrugged. “I learned how to fight when I was young. My father is a trader, and I often guarded his goods on the road. I needed to be able to fight to protect myself, our workers, our livelihoods. But it took me a long time to like to fight.”

“But you do now?” Nicolo always seemed interested in the things Yusuf had to say, though he rarely returned them, but there was a particular intensity to him now.

“If I am fighting for something I believe in,” Yusuf said. “My home. My family.” He saw the realization in Nicolo’s eyes _. A friend,_ he thought, _or someone I could come to love._ But this was not the time.

“No wonder you killed me so many times,” the other man said.

“And you?” Yusuf asked after a few minutes. “Do you kill for what you believe in?”

The weight of it hung in the air between them for a long moment.

“I want to believe in something,” Nicolo said finally, haltingly. “I am… Violence comes easily to me. Perhaps more easily than it should. And I want to use it to do good.” His eyes met Yusuf’s. “But I do not think that I have always been a good judge of what that good is.”

They didn’t speak again that night.

***

_The women fought like they were one being, the taller and stronger Andromache scything through their enemies with her axe, relentless and unstoppable, the tiny, light-footed Quynh a whirlwind of flashing swords and impossibly-quick cuts. They killed as though it were a game, or something that came so naturally that they’d long since stopped having to think about it. And when the fighting was over, they collapsed together, lying in each other’s arms, skin to skin, breathing as one._

_And they dreamed of the men who wanted to love each other in this way, even if they did not yet realize it._

_***_

Yusuf didn’t necessarily wake up that morning thinking he knew Nicolo better than he had the night before, but it was a beginning.

They talked more, after the fight with the bandits. Maybe it was that seeing Nicolo’s remorse, even if he still didn’t know what exactly Nicolo regretted, that drove off the last of Yusuf’s reticence. Maybe it was that, having confessed what he obviously thought of as a shameful secret, Nicolo no longer tried to hide from him. Maybe it was that Nicolo had killed for him, rather than killing him, and that had changed the alignment of their relationship in some subtle way, so that they were no longer two enemies who had banded together out of desperation, but two who were on the same side of the line with everyone else on the other. Whatever it was, as they moved north, they began to speak about their lives. Yusuf told Nicolo about his large, loving, sometimes overwhelming family, about all the places he’d traveled to on his father’s behalf, about the man he’d loved when he was young and the women, newly met, who’d hoped to love for the rest of his life. Nicolo told him about his own family, the mother he’d adored and the father he hadn’t, and about growing up equally drawn to the Church and the sword. They talked about brothers and sisters, about friends, about the first boys they’d each dreamed of and kissed. 

Most of the talking was late at night, sometimes in an inn if they found one to stop in, other times by the side of the road. They always lay together now, whether they had made love or not. That had been Nicolo’s doing; one night when they’d laid down, too exhausted to even dream of touching each other, but Yusuf had been unable to sleep, restless as he tried to match his breathing to Nicolo’s. Finally Nicolo had called softly, “come here,” in a mildly exasperated tone, and when Yusuf rolled closer, the other man had grabbed his arms and tugged them over himself, so that Yusuf was wrapped around him from behind.

“You don’t like to sleep alone,” he said as an explanation.

That was true, but… “Do you?” Yusuf asked. He already knew that Nicolo wasn’t drawn to touch the way he was; he never reached out to slap Yusuf’s shoulder or touch his face the way Yusuf did to him, but he never objected.

Nicolo was silent for a long moment. “I never minded,” he said finally. “But I find… this, I like.”

Sometimes, their late night conversations touched on more serious topics. The closer they got to the sea, the more Yusuf became aware that they could not keep traveling forever, that, moreover, they were going in the wrong direction. If the two warrior women were in the desert, they were to the south. And Nicolo wanted to find the women, seemed sometimes desperate about it, and yet he was the one who kept suggesting they go north, talking about things he’d heard about Cyprus, how he’d always wanted to go there.

Yusuf was less sure of the warrior women. They were impressive, certainly, to dream about, and some part of him echoed to their call. But they were also creatures of terrible violence, and he was afraid of what it said about him, if he was like them.

“I was thinking,” Nicolo said one night. Maybe it was just that he slept turned away from Yusuf, his face hidden, and yet their bodies so close that Yusuf could feel every shift in his muscles, that made him talk more now. “When we come to Cyprus, we should stay there. Find a house. Become… fishermen, or something like that.”

“Do you know how to fish?” Yusuf asked wryly. 

“No,” Nicolo admitted. “But I could learn. And we could…” His ribs expanded beneath Yusuf’s arms, slow breaths in and out. “We could wait, for the women. Andromache and Quynh.” It was the first time either of them had said their names out loud.

Yusuf thought about that. “And when they find us.”

“They will explain.” Nicolo sounded confident about that, or maybe just desperate to believe that. “They will tell us why this happened to us. What we are. What we are meant to do now. What it all means.”

“And if they can’t?” Instantly it felt like he had put down some great burden, to say that out loud.

Nicolo rolled over in his arms. Even in the dark, the beautiful green of his eyes, the first thing Yusuf had seen, was visible. “Then we will find our own meaning.”

Yusuf laughed. “That easily?”

“No, but there must be meaning. There must be a reason. Even if…” He paused, eyes shifting as though looking for the words in the darkness beyond their camp. “Even if the only reason is so that we might meet each other.”

Coming up with those words seemed to be the limit of his ability, and he stopped, staring at Yusuf helplessly. And Yusuf thought, _I could write a poem about you. About how I met a man I wished to kill, and did, again and again, and how he ripped me away from everything I have ever known and loved. And how I should regret that, and yet each day I think I do so less, because I have been given a life, or many lives, to learn him._

The women fought like mad creatures, remorseless and violent, but they also loved fiercely, completely. They were one with each other. Perhaps they did have something to teach.

“Then we will stop,” he said, and kissed Nicolo. “And we will wait for them.”


End file.
